I found it interesting how the camera kept showing Larry Ellison ebullient each time Nadal would do something good out there.

And whose hand did Rafa shake first after beating Delpo??? Larry Ellison!!

I suspect that the tycoon may have rigged the tourney so that his man can win and hence augment the prestige of the event.

Thoughts?

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As much as I hate Nadal....he had the hardest draw even if Federer was a little suspect but Nadal was as well.

Gulbis in the form of his life, Berdych having some decent final runs..with his 3 yearAussie QF Streak. Federer....still gives Rafa tough matches. Del Potro finally getting it together....Rotterdam was proof....and he almost pulled it off.

Forget Mayer and Harrison.....

Not as hard as Murray Miami draw....but I bet Murray draw will implode like it always does.

Courts even slower and higher bouncing than previous years allowing Rafael to pretty much play his clay court game full stop; makes sense that Ellison being the huge Humblito fanboy he is would organize the courts to play this way to favor his boy.

Of course it was rigged. As are the courts, his anti-doping controls, and the umpires who don't disqualify him for not hitting a flat ball or not S&V-ing, as he should.

But you know what's worst of all? When Federer was a kid, his trainers were furious nadthards who taught him a OHBH so he would be vulnerable to Rafa's topspin. The outrage makes every objective and intelligent tennis fan's blood boil!

When you get down to it, I guess right now the only way for Rafa to have a non-rigged draw is having to face a well-rested Djokovic at some point. I can't really think of any other combination, can anyone? Which, by the way, I am all for, since that seems to be the ultimate clash these days.

As much as I hate Nadal....he had the hardest draw even if Federer was a little suspect but Nadal was as well.

Gulbis in the form of his life, Berdych having some decent final runs..with his 3 yearAussie QF Streak. Federer....still gives Rafa tough matches. Del Potro finally getting it together....Rotterdam was proof....and he almost pulled it off.

Forget Mayer and Harrison.....

Not as hard as Murray Miami draw....but I bet Murray draw will implode like it always does.

As much as I hate Nadal....he had the hardest draw even if Federer was a little suspect but Nadal was as well.

Gulbis in the form of his life, Berdych having some decent final runs..with his 3 yearAussie QF Streak. Federer....still gives Rafa tough matches. Del Potro finally getting it together....Rotterdam was proof....and he almost pulled it off.

Forget Mayer and Harrison.....

Not as hard as Murray Miami draw....but I bet Murray draw will implode like it always does.

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How on earth can you say that Nadal had the hardest draw. Nadal has lost plenty of times to Novak and Andy and did not have to play either despite his low seeding. He only had to play against Fed whom he generally beats lately.

As much as I hate Nadal....he had the hardest draw even if Federer was a little suspect but Nadal was as well.

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Is that sarcasm ? Before the IW draw was out, someone had started a thread with the best case draw for Nadal and it turned out more or less the same exactly. Not to take away anything from his victory, but to say he had the hardest draw makes no sense. Things would have been different had Nadal and Delpo switched places in the draw i.e Nadal had landed in the Murray-Djoker half.

Just compare his draw with that of his opponent in the final. Nadal had a walkover and two of his pigeons (one of them injured no less) before the final against whom he can win even on one foot. Gulbis was the only one who put up some resistance on the way to the final but then Gulbis being Gulbis, the result was never in doubt.

Compare that with Delpo. He had to beat the two best slow HC players of the moment back to back in 3 setters. Djoko-Murray have each made the AO final 3 times in the last 4 years so no comparing them to anyone in Nadal's path to the final. To add to this , Delpo played the second semifinal and had less rest before the final.

The excuse that Delpo was tired just doesn't cut it, read through the match thread to see why. Berdych was playing really well throughout the whole tournament, Gulbis was on a roll, Federer may have back issues, but he is classified as fit to play when he steps onto the court. If posters claim that Nadal's injury isn't an excuse for losing at Wimbledon, then the same should be said about Federer losing to Nadal.

You can't really rig a tournament unless the winner is predetermined and the other players were payed a handsome sum to lose. Regardless of court conditions and draws it was still Nadal who had to win those matches.

Nadal had not won an HC tournament since 2010
Nadal whines a lot about too many HC tournaments
Nadal has long layoff because of bad knees and keeps whining about HC
Nadal comes back and promptly resumes whining about HC
ATP/players had enough of Nadal's whining about HC
ATP/players conspire to let Nadal win in IW on HC thus sabotaging said whining (would look rather foolish to keep on whining after winning)

So, they didn't let him win "to augment the prestige of the event". They let him win so he'd finally STFU about how evil hard courts are.

Not rigged but things worked out well for him. Gulbis was confident and really tough to beat. But after that, Fed looked like he couldn't move and Djoko/Murray who have been the 2 best hard court players for the last year or so got stunned by Delpo who clearly ran out of gas in the final after that herculean effort. Nobody could have predicted that really. But players have won masters with much, much easier draws than Rafa did. It happens all the time. Djoko in Canada 2012 (it was Gasquet in the final for god's sake) and Fed in IW 2012 (Isner in the final) or Madrid 2012 (Berd in the final). The majority of events actually get won with a bit of a favorable draw. Overcoming the draw from hell is the exception, not the rule. Delpo may have beaten Rafa and Fed back to back at USO 2009 but he sure got helped along the way by Rafa suffering from a stomach tear. Of course, the people who blame Fed's loss at IW 2013 on a bad back are the same people who won't acknowledge that Delpo's 2009 win came at the expense of a diminished Nadal. But that's the way sport goes. Nothing to do with rigging.

Nadal had not won an HC tournament since 2010
Nadal whines a lot about too many HC tournaments
Nadal has long layoff because of bad knees and keeps whining about HC
Nadal comes back and promptly resumes whining about HC
ATP/players had enough of Nadal's whining about HC
ATP/players conspire to let Nadal win in IW on HC thus sabotaging said whining (would look rather foolish to keep on whining after winning)

So, they didn't let him win "to augment the prestige of the event". They let him win so he'd finally STFU about how evil hard courts are.

This plot was as cunning as it was clever.

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I do admire the effort that has gone into this particular theory, however, I think the following is (disappointingly) more likely.

Ellison may be a bit of a jerk for being so openly biased when he shouldn't be, but it's laughably to suggest it's rigged.He beat some tough players -what are you saying that allhis opponents were paid off? Yeah right :lol:

Not rigged but things worked out well for him. Gulbis was confident and really tough to beat. But after that, Fed looked like he couldn't move and Djoko/Murray who have been the 2 best hard court players for the last year or so got stunned by Delpo who clearly ran out of gas in the final after that herculean effort. Nobody could have predicted that really. But players have won masters with much, much easier draws than Rafa did. It happens all the time. Djoko in Canada 2012 (it was Gasquet in the final for god's sake) and Fed in IW 2012 (Isner in the final) or Madrid 2012 (Berd in the final). The majority of events actually get won with a bit of a favorable draw. Overcoming the draw from hell is the exception, not the rule. Delpo may have beaten Rafa and Fed back to back at USO 2009 but he sure got helped along the way by Rafa suffering from a stomach tear. Of course, the people who blame Fed's loss at IW 2013 on a bad back are the same people who won't acknowledge that Delpo's 2009 win came at the expense of a diminished Nadal. But that's the way sport goes. Nothing to do with rigging.

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personally I think Nadal had a pretty testing draw, but I wouldn't call Fed's IW 2012 easy either (not saying some haven't been easy but that's not really that easy) He did have Isner in the final but he also had to beat Nadal, Delpo and Raonic. Nadal didn't play well but still a good win, just like Nadal's win vs Federer was still good play from him regardless of how his opponent played. Madrid was easier but even still Federer struggles vs Berdych (I know he probably shouldn't and for Nadal and Djokovic that would be a straight forward draw but for Federer it was still a final he could have lost) Plus it wasn't even clay,so who's to say the people Federer beat weren't potential GOATS of "blue ice" ?

Ofcourse it was rigged. Ever since Ralph burst on the scene, the HCs have been slowed down. I thought IW this year was abominable, the ball was kicking up like crazy suiting Ralph's moonballing. I mean Ralph was standing 10 feet behind the baseline,playing his clay game to beat HCers. Pathetic.

How on earth can you say that Nadal had the hardest draw. Nadal has lost plenty of times to Novak and Andy and did not have to play either despite his low seeding. He only had to play against Fed whom he generally beats lately.

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is it rafa's fault that neither muzzah or djoker reached the final? wait, of course it is... :roll:

this place cracks me up! it's not enough to be a fan; you must be a full-blown apologist!

You can't really rig a tournament unless the winner is predetermined and the other players were payed a handsome sum to lose. Regardless of court conditions and draws it was still Nadal who had to win those matches.

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Right you can't rig the whole tournament but you can certainly to rig the draw so that your player has the best matchups on the path to final. Nadal's realistic best hope of the draw should have been facing just one of the other real top fours. He has a very material chance of facing two of them before the final. What happened was not only he faced just one but his favorite one with back problem before final.

Madrid draw was rigged for sure. They'll most likely get their dream SF and dream F. There was an equal chance that Nadal would end up in Djoker's half but surprise surprise. Same at IW. While Nadal was away Fed got Murray both at the USO and the AO and Djoker got Ferrer. How blatant can they be? :roll::evil:

Madrid draw was rigged for sure. They'll most likely get their dream SF and dream F. There was an equal chance that Nadal would end up in Djoker's half but surprise surprise. Same at IW. While Nadal was away Fed got Murray both at the USO and the AO and Djoker got Ferrer. How blatant can they be? :roll::evil:

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Last year when Fed was 3 and Nadal was 2, they could just have easily put Nadal in Fed's draw every time to make this dream semi/final. But Fed landed in Novak's draw at Rome, French Open, Wimbledon to name a few places.

In order to prove that a draw was rigged, you need a large enough sample size to show that "this sequence of events can't happen by chance". In the whole Fed/Djokovic same half in GS case THAT probability was calculated to be less than 1 % , so there was a legitimate reason to believe something was up. Unlike that case, the probability of Nadal being in Fed's half in both IW and Madrid = 50% * 50% = 25% , hardly a low enough number to cry conspiracy theory about. That would be like saying I tossed a coin twice and got heads back to back.

But Nadal and Djoko SHOULD be on opposite sides of the draw because they're the 2 best on clay, everybody knows that. It doesn't mean the draw is rigged. It could just be a coincidence. Same goes for Djoko' s insane path to the semi. It could be deliberate or it could be bad luck. But if you think about it, it actually evens out nicely. Fed has a cakewalk quarter but then he has to face the clay goat in the semi: easy quarter/ semi from hell.
Djoko has a minefield quarter but the easier semi: it's a trade-off.